About Us
One of Europe’s leading designer gift companies
Gisela Graham Limited is one of Europe’s leading giftware design companies. Having made her name crafting beautiful Christmas and Easter decorations, Gisela Graham has more recently turned her design flair to home interior gifts, with increasing success. With over 40 ranges of seasonal and non-seasonal collections, Gisela Graham provides originality and charm to some of Europe’s finest shops.
Gisela Graham’s ranges cover a broad spectrum of styles and genres – country, quirky, classic, sweet, retro, nostalgic – but all share a characteristic charm, tastefulness and originality. She presides over her London-based team of talented in-house designers and is involved in the design and selection of every one of her products. Gisela Graham’s company now has some 60 full-time employees and sells around the world.
The company’s products are sold in about 5000 shops. In the UK its customers include virtually all the retailers of note here, but its trademark silver label can be found in good shops all around the world, especially in Germany. About a fifth of its sales are made overseas, as far away as Australia.
The Company remains privately owned, the principal shareholder being Gisela Graham herself. A sizeable proportion of the equity was given six years ago to long-standing members of staff.
Gisela Graham was born in Germany and educated at Berlin and Goettingen Universities. While her father wanted her to follow in his footsteps and become a lawyer, her ambition from her earliest years was to own a shop. She has always been interested in crafts and design: as a schoolgirl she once earned detention for skipping homework to help her mother make straw stars for the family Christmas tree. Gisela founded her business about 28 years ago with a borrowed £27, starting the business literally at her kitchen table when her children were small. One of her early products was a dolls house of her own design. She recalls ferrying components and paint to outworkers around London in a 2CV with a child in the back. Terence Conran was among one of her very first customers.
